1/48 P51 B Mustang

[Stokesy44]

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the B variant. While the D became the famous one, it was the B that first made the Mustang's name. The D also holds sway with kit manufacturers too - very few B's knocking about. Trumpy are rumoured to be releasing a 1/24 B but I'll believe that when I see it. Currently the largest scale available is 1/48.

The kit



Typical Tamiya, nicely packaged and the plastic is clean and crisply moulded.





I've treated myself to some aftermarket too. A Montex set for the canopy masks (and insignias if I am feeling brave!) and a small set of coloured PE for the cockpit.




Started test fitting the cockpit and went to work with the scalpel to cut away the bits and bobs where the PE is going to go.




I thought that would be it for the night but I couldn't help myself and got stuck into the PE for the instrument panel.




Very pleased - although it does feel like cheating!

That'll do till the morning. Next up is painting and weathering the cockpit then the rest of the PE.

[Cymru]

Great choice, the D variant dominates, so it's cool to see the B variant. Good luck.

[Avgas]

[AdamLuscombe]

That PE looks great

[Stokesy44]

That PE looks great

Thanks mate. The main panel was 3 layers but it went down like a glove. Beautiful fit.

[Stokesy44]

A very quick update.

Got stuck into more of the PE in the cockpit. I used a wash and dry brush on all the surfaces first then did the 2 sidewalls and the left side pedestal. The sidewalls were fine but the pedestal needed a bit of 'persuasion' before it started to behave itself. Pleased with the result. Its my first dalliance with PE in the cockpit and for the price, its well worth it.





The last stuff to do is the harness. The seat's all ready for it. It's only held on its supports with blue tack at the moment so I'll take it off for when I have to attach the harness. Maybe tonight if I can.

[Stokesy44]

Finished the seat, that's the last of the PE!




Test fitted the fuselage. Went together like a glove (its Tamiya ya know!) so that's what's up next. Should pick up some speed now all the fannying about's finished.

[Stokesy44]

I've now got a plane instead of a box of bits!!

Cockpit into the fuselage then buttoned up, nice and easy. The underside of the wings is a single piece and goes on before the upper surfaces. That way, when you put the uppers on you can mate them precisely to the wing root. Say what you like about Tamiya (and many do) but for me, they make kits for the modeller. It feels like they want you to succeed whereas some other manufacturers seem to want blood before they put out

The upper surfaces almost clicked into place, in fact they sat in place without any pegs or taping. Just one peg on each wing to make sure the wing was tight where the flaps will attach. Oh how I sighed with (smug) satisfaction when I saw how the join looked at the wing root.




No glue marks either thanks to good old TET



Tail pieces went on nicely too. Often you get a gap, upper or lower, rarely do both sides look snug but not this baby.



A little bit of filler on the underside main seam, nothing major



Something else that's really cool is the upper engine cover is a separate 1 peace part. There's no central join to mess about with and the cowling has all that wonderful detail that would have gone if you had needed to sand the joint (Eduard take note!).



Beautiful lines. She has a lovely shape to her. Proves the old maxim, if it looks right, it flies right! What a sight she must have been to those bomber crews back in the day.



Getting her ready for priming now. The kit comes with options to have the canopy open or closed. With the B, one side folds down and the roof section opens up. I want the canopy open but I couldn't work out how to use the open parts while I'm painting. The solution was to use the closed part (which is a one piece jobby with the wind screen) and attach it using white glue. That way the cockpit is protected and I can swap out the separate parts once the painting's done. Montex masks on the rear panels





Wheel bays all buttoned up for the primer.



I'm using Vallejo's new metal colour which has its own black primer so this is a first for me - using a dark primer on an aircraft. No pre-shade so it will be all about tones and levels when the time comes for the aluminium.

[Stokesy44]

Its priming time. Put the primer down on Tuesday morning. Its weird painting an aircraft black though. Since I started airbrushing last year its been light grey primer and a black pre-shade for everything that flies until now.

First NMF job though so hey, go with what it says on the bottle. It went down nice and the surface detail looks beautiful.






She looks like a night fighter! Or a phantom Mustang. Some spectral fighter destined to patrol the heavens for all eternity. Lol, I need a lie down.

She gets her NMF knickers on tomorrow - yeah!

[Avgas]

They always look great in black primer, seems a shame to paint them.

[Lysus]

The primer really shows off the almost art deco influence of the B. No matter the variant the 51 always looked like art to me.

Great work on that cockpit!

[Stokesy44]

The primer really shows off the almost art deco influence of the B. No matter the variant the 51 always looked like art to me.

Great work on that cockpit!

Thanks mate

Yes indeed, its a lovely aircraft to look at, amazing given how quickly it was designed. And on top of that, how adding the Merlin not only increased the performance, it made it better looking too. Its usually the other way round. Aircraft are at their purest in their design phase. Changes usually take away the looks! Just compare a Mk1 Spitfire to the later snarling Griffon birds.

Anyway, enough of the drooling. I waited the 48 hours then got the NMF on this morning.








Next up will be the anti-glare on the upper engine cowling and some tonal adjustment to set off the canvas covered rudder and elevators. That's in another 48 hours though, I want to let the paint settle down nicely and I'm still being a bit Marvin the Paranoid Android about masking the NMF.

Got a Tamiya Jagdtiger on the go so that will keep me busy in the meantime. What is it about German vehicles? Wheels, wheels and more bloody wheels

[Stokesy44]

So I waited 48 hours before masking and guess what happened? First bit of tape I put down ripped up the paint! Either I pressed it down too hard or I sprayed the paint too thick. Thankfully I was masking one of the black stripes on the tail plane so the damage was limited.

Still, it scared the life out of me

So what I did was spray the model with Aqua Gloss and wait a day in the hope that the surface hardened up. I then masked ONE PIECE at a time being careful to only press down the tape as much as was needed to keep it in place. I also stuck the tape to my shirt when it came off the role to take away some of the stickiness. And finally I reused the tape pieces more than once as I figured they would be less sticky each time.



The kit actually comes with decals for the black stripes but I wanted to preserve the surface detail so I sprayed them






I did have one minor masking casualty but I'm not going to say where it was. Hopefully then you might not see it

Still need to do the stripes on the underside then its decals and details time.

[Icemannique]

Looking good so far !

Was the mistake canopy related ?

[Stokesy44]

Looking good so far !

Was the mistake canopy related ?

Thanks mate.

Nice try but no re the canopy question. I took a chunk of paint off the top of the rudder when I masked the upper edge of the tail fin stripe.

The canopy and windscreen are only on during the painting. Once I'm done I'm going to swap them out for the separate pieces which depict the canopy as open. You get 2 options with the kit, a single piece which is the windscreen and the canopy and a separate windscreen and separate canopy which shows the upper and side panels open.

That's a ways off yet, probably the last thing.

[Stokesy44]

Finished off the masking this evening. Stripes under the wing and the yellow nose.




Despite being as timid as possible with the masking I still pulled a small bit of paint off the nose. You can see it by the grill, low down on the side cowling -



Another coat of gloss is due then its on with the decals




Second balls up of the evening. Made an absolute nause up when painting the prop spinner so that's been stripped back to the plastic for a re-work. Honestly, I sometimes wonder why I bother

Still, its all good (I think)

[pourquoi61]

Waiting for the metal paint to go on as I also have stayed away from n.m.f. aircraft. Good luck.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ahhh I am late to the party for this one...awesome work
Loving the interior cockpit details and your shiny paint is sweet
Keep plugging away, it will be a beauty when you are finished

[Stokesy44]

Ahhh I am late to the party for this one...awesome work
Loving the interior cockpit details and your shiny paint is sweet
Keep plugging away, it will be a beauty when you are finished

Thanks Scott. I think I'm on the downslope now. Decals, weathering, undercarriage and canopy left. Hopefully I can manage those without and more damage!

I keep dreaming I'll wake up and all the paint will be lying on the desk and my 51B will be stark frikkin naked again!

Coen mentioned the Alclad NMF stuff is awesome to work with, a far tougher finish and easy to mask. Using Vallejo's stuff, which is acrylic, was a bit of a compromise for me as I have only ever sprayed acrylics - you know what they say, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!

[Stokesy44]

Repainted the spinner and glossed everything then it was on to the decals.

Everything went down well and I didn't damage the paint








More glossing to seal the decals then its on to the weathering, the wheels, the prop and the canopy. Nearly done.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Oh wow, look at her with the nose painted and the decals...a real stunner

[Stokesy44]

Oh wow, look at her with the nose painted and the decals...a real stunner

Thanks

Yes indeed, she's a looker alright! High maintenance though!

Just done all the little extra bits, prop blades, tyres, open version of the canopy. She's all glossed again so its washing and weathering time later. Time to give the girl some character.

[Stokesy44]

As Gold Leader said, Almost there, almost there....

Ultimate Dark Dirt on




All cleaned up and rid of that one peace canopy. All the separate bits were masked up earlier using the Montex kit I bought (fantastic things, paint masks ). The frame needs weathering.




Little bit of dirt and silver on the frame



Score one for Tamiya, the prop blades were attached in such a way that I could paint and decal them before taking them off and putting them on the spinner. I cant believe how much detail there is on the decals. At normal size you cant read any of it - or at least I cant!



So here she is. The only weathering I have done so far is the Ultimate wash and the canopy frame. I'll do exhaust and gun smoke and maybe some chipping on the upper cowling but that's about it. After all, its a plane, not a tank







Quite chuffed over all. First NMF and its been a challenge but not a chore. Luvly jubly.

[Avgas]

I would be quite chuffed with that as well! Fantastic job.

[Twokidsnosleep]

One of the nicest props I have seen
prop on the prop, so to speak

[Lysus]

Woo! Looks the business, man! Can't wait to see the reveal, it looks so dobe already. Also, big props to the props indeed for them being connected to the sprue by the pin and not the blade. They look fantastic and I bet it was a relief to be able to work on them still on the runner.

[burnie43]

that looks great
thanks for sharing
mark

[Stokesy44]

Thanks all you guys

Just got a few bits to finish off and she's done. I bought some water based pencils last week and I plan to use them to highlight some detail on the cowling. Saw a great vid on Youtube where a guy was doing that to a 1/48 Spit and thought, hey I like the look of that. Time to try something new.

Better get a move on though, got a jagdpanzer on the go ad he's getting a bit frustrated with my 'neglect'

[Willem]

She's looking veeeeeeeerrrry nice, mate. Lovely markings and a great paint job.

I've seen the same vid so looking forward to seeing how that goes.

[Stokesy44]

All done

Finished off with some minor chipping and tried out my new pencils. Good fun to use and a nice feel of control. Great with the different colours too as you can be subtle. Grey highlights on black areas looks nice as opposed to white which is too much etc.




Was able to pick out the rivet detail with the pencils on the flaps where the black stripes were.









That's it. All done. After I had taken the pics I noticed I hadn't shown the fuel cap stain on the starboard wing, and the canopy side section was wonky.

All fixed now so ready for the reveal pics which I'll do later.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Could you share a link to the pencil crayon video, Si vous plais
Love the bird, gorgeous indeed

[Stokesy44]

Could you share a link to the pencil crayon video, Si vous plais
Love the bird, gorgeous indeed

Thanks Scott

There you go



The whole vid is freakishly good, the pencil stuff is at 21.40.

[demarcation]

Fantastic work mate, she looks superb!!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Awesome, thanks Stokesy I bookmarked that sucker

[shortCummins]

really nice build, I've added this kit to my ever growing list

[Stokesy44]

Fantastic work mate, she looks superb!!

really nice build, I've added this kit to my ever growing list

Thanks Guys

Its certainly a lovely little kit. I couldn't get over the fit when I was putting it together. Ive got an Eduard 1/48 Spitfire IX and a Fw 190 coming up and I just hope they are as well engineered as this Tamiya offering.